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Truth & Ticket: The legacy of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett

I played sports as a kid for the proverbial love of the game. I watch sports as a distraction from all the [expletive] that seeps into our everyday lives. And I write about sports to avoid all that is wrong with the business world -- “Greed is good,” and all that comes with it.

“I think we’re in a much better position than we were when I got here 10 years ago, where we sort of had to do it in pieces and move at a slower pace,” said Ainge. “Our objective is to do it less painful and to do it with more speed and more pace. I think that we’re in a better position moving forward right now with some of our younger core players as well.”

Instead, Truth and Ticket simply took up room on a salary cap. And, now, they’re three first-round picks, $12 million in 2014 cap space (Kris Humphries), a terrible contract (Gerald Wallace’s three years, $30.3 million) and a bunch of dudes KG would call “nobodies.”

“Draft picks are a great way to keep your payroll in check,” said Ainge. “The reason that the payroll is important is not just for dollars. It’s also for flexibility. With the new CBA, being under the cap is a great advantage, being under the tax is a competitive advantage.

“It’s an asset to be there,” added the Celtics president of basketball operations. “You have more flexibility. You can do trades easier. You have more money to spend on free agents and exceptions and so forth, so it’s a competitive advantage as well as just dollars.”

In the crowd that night, someone held a sign that read, “You can stab him, but you can’t stop him.” Pierce may have grown up in Los Angeles, but he was raised in Boston. In the end, he gave the Celtics and the city everything he had, and what he had was pretty damn good.

When Pierce peaked, he was indeed The Mother-Bleeping Truth, a natural-born scorer who embarrassed LeBron James and Kobe Bryant -- the two greatest players of his era -- on his way to earning the 2008 NBA Finals MVP, ending a 22-year championship drought and ensuring his number belonged in those same rafters alongside Bill Russell and Larry Bird.

Only five players rank among the top 10 Celtics in career points, rebounds and assists. Pierce is one of them, joining Russell, Bird, John Havlicek and Dave Cowens. In 168 fewer games, the Truth fell 2,374 points shy of Hondo’s franchise-record 26,395 career points.

While Pierce remained the face of the franchise, Kevin Garnett became its heart, its soul. As Truth so often reminded us, Ticket changed the culture of a team that won 24 games the year before he arrived, personifying the Ubuntu Era of these never-say-die unselfish Celtics.

Not in Boston, anyway. Take solace in Truth and Ticket still getting to play together.

“We’ve seen each other grow,” Garnett said upon surpassing Jerry West for fifth on the all-time scoring list and Wes Unseld for 10th in career rebounds three months ago. Rarely does KG open himself up, but when he does it’s magnificent, and this was one of those times.

During his own trying times of childhood, KG visited Pierce when the two were teenagers, “tearing up his mom’s living room, breaking vases, almost getting our asses whooped.”

“I was with Paul the first time I ever experienced Crenshaw on a Sunday,” the future Hall of Famer continued. “For y’all who don’t know about Crenshaw on a Sunday, Crenshaw on a Sunday is a big deal. He was taking me out, and we were being 15, 16 years old.”

They played together in the 1995 McDonald’s All-American Game, nearly attended college together and spent a decade apart before reuniting on the Celtics, surpassing 20,000 career points together, winning a title together, cementing their legacies together.

“That’s special,” added Garnett. “That’s very, very special. That’s not common these days, being able to call someone in this league your friend and to be able to see someone as your friend grow and vice versa, so these are special times.”

And come October, this old-school duo will undoubtedly own the newest of NBA buildings, playing for a coach in Jason Kidd who as a player watched Pierce complete that 2002 Eastern Conference finals comeback from the opposing sideline. Full circle, I guess.

Enjoy it while it lasts, Brooklyn, because it doesn’t last, and that’s the business. Pierce becomes a free agent after the season, and Garnett comes one step closer to retirement. The luxury tax and a lack of affordable assets will catch up sooner or later. That’s the NBA.

When their time in Brooklyn is over, Truth and Ticket will return to Boston, Pierce might even sign a one-day contract to retire as a Celtic and their numbers will join the 2008 championship banner in the Garden rafters. Side-by-side. Together.

After Thursday’s trade, that day seems like a long way off, and who knows? Maybe Ainge will have rebuilt by then, using all that cap room and all those assets. For the time being, though, it just doesn’t feel right, because the Celtics have gone the way of Boo Boo. To bed.

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